Emily and Josh have moved to a farm in Nebraska. They are eager to start a new life. Emily’s mother died and she needs to escape the memories San Francisco holds. They have bought a house and are renting the land surrounding it to a farmer. It is about as different as anyone’s life could become, and yet there is an old barn on the farm that affects Emily in strange ways.
Emily sees and hears things that Josh swears he is not experiencing. She feels the love for her husband slipping out of her grasp, as he constantly doubts her. He blames her concerns on lingering grief, and his often repeated suggestion is that Emily needs rest.
I’m not going to delvedeeply into what happens since spoilers lurk around every corner of this farm. I did want to yell at both Emily and Josh quite a few times. Josh for being so unsupportive, and Emily, well for making decisions that just didn’t make sense to me. I was convinced I knew how this would end. Imagine my surprise when I was correct about one aspect and totally wrong on another.

Is Emily seeing ghosts? Is she slowly losing her mind? Maybe less coffee and more sleep might help? Emily's dream house proves a bit more isolating than expected, with memories of her dead mother and other women, also dead - no wait, was that a fox? And why won't anyone believe her? The book will keep you up, just to see how close the barn gets...

This is definitely a creepy and atmospheric thriller, but it is slow moving. For me the haunted house stuff never works and it didn't do it for me in this one either, I had no idea that would be a part of the novel. It was very predictable and I felt it used a lot of what we see in other thrillers.

The Farmhouse is a mixed bag of a book, but you can’t deny that it evokes plenty of emotions.

The Farmhouse follows Josh and Emily Hauk as they embark on their new life in rural Nebraska. Emily’s mother has recently passed and the memories of her still haunt Emily. But the memory of her mother isn’t the only thing keeping Emily up at night. The newest resident of the old Belkin farm also sees the barn move, hears screams from the cornfields at night, and eventually faces the ghost of the late Alice Belkin herself. In order to settle into her home, Emily must first lay to rest the ghosts of the past.

This book read a lot like a classic 70s horror to me, something along the lines of Burnt Offerings or The Auctioneer. I can’t really put my finger on exactly why that is, but something about Chelsea Conradt’s voice and the style of the writing just really harkens back to those classic novels. And this one is packed full of all those classic tropes. Spooky house, strange neighbors, and a completely oblivious husband. I really enjoyed the atmosphere and setting.

The Farmhouse definitely has all the supernatural elements of a spooky ghost story, but if you’re not really into the supernatural, but like a good malevolent atmosphere, I think this one could still be for you. While the ghosts are a central feature, I found the more tangible aspects of Emily’s sleuthing to be more compelling.

I also found all of the characters rather compelling. One of the main things I remember from my master’s program was a professor telling us that we needed our characters to make mistakes. Perfect people didn’t exist, so perfect characters can’t either. And, oh, boy, does Emily make mistakes (and Josh, too, but I’ll get to him in a minute). The actions Emily takes gives her a feeling of reality. I understand why she does what she does even when it made me frustrated or annoyed. And while I’ve seen in other reviews that people don’t like the disbelieving husband trope (and Josh could be the poster boy), I totally get why he makes the decisions he does too. I don’t blame the decisions that either of the Hauk’s make even when it made me rage against either of them. They’re very real characters; if you've read any of my other reviews, this is very important to me.

That said, at some points, Emily is almost too real. Instead of seeing her thoughts, I feel like I’m reading someone’s journal, someone who spends their life chronically online. This eased off as the book progressed, but there were so many statements in the first half of the book that completely threw me out of the writing. I viscerally remember tl:dr being written unironically in the middle of Emily’s thoughts. There’s lots of these moments, and they felt incredibly awkward coupled with Conradt’s otherwise lovely writing.

I think this book could have also benefited from someone reading over it to comb out all of the loose threads. Conradt has left so many, so many little moments that just don’t make sense. This book just requires a bit too much of the suspension of disbelief for me to be entirely satisfied with the ending.

Overall, this isn’t a bad book. It grew on me like the house grew on Emily. Conradt writes an interesting story, and I would definitely be open to picking up a book by her again. For the most part, the writing reads well and the atmosphere is kept particularly unnerving. However, this book suffers a lot from trying to be a lot bigger than it needs to be. Trimming down on some of the elements could have really honed this book down into a nice 70s-style classic.

Loved how dark this book became. The messages were powerful and stirring. It both entertaining and a thoughtful read. Will check out from this author.

This book was pretty good, I would definitely recommend

~This was given by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review

Emily and her husband move to a farmhouse after the death of her mother. Soon after, Emily begins hearing noises and seeing lights in the old barn. It even seems to be moving in distance from the farmhouse. Is something supernatural really happening there, or is it her imagination caused from insomnia and stress?

While the premise is interesting, Emily's internal dialogue is sometimes clunky, resulting in a slowly moving plot.

Moving from California to a farm in Nebraska is no small feat, but Emily loves it. She enjoys her runs on country roads, becoming a chicken mom, and the quietness…until she starts hearing voices. The barn on their property keeps getting closer to their house and odd things are happening on the farm. Emily is convinced she isn’t the only one seeing these things, but when she tries to show proof, it’s not there.

There were parts of this book that I enjoyed, however I feel like it was pretty stagnant and not much action until about 80% through. Thank you, Netgalley, for the read.

"The Farm House" by Chelsea Conradt follows Emily and her husband as they move from the busy city of San Francisco to a rural farm in Nebraska. Emily and her husband decide that they are ready for a big lifestyle change after Emily's beloved mother passes away. After they get settled into their new picturesque farm, strange things start to occur. Between the lights turning on in the barn window, ghostly voices, and the fact that the barn moves locations almost daily, Emily is not so sure the new farmhouse is the peaceful sanctuary she was expecting.

Thank you to the publisher, Poisoned Pen for the eARC copy for review purposes. All opinions expressed here are mine alone.

This book was so eerie with all the events that Emily experienced. As someone who grew up on a New England hobby farm, I really enjoyed the setting and the local folks. In the beginning, I loved Emily's humor and playfulness! She was such an entertaining character, but unfortunately, that diminished quickly as she became more serious due to the series of events that took place.

Overall, I enjoyed this eerie paranormal thriller novel, but I wish Emily's character had maintained her original charm throughout, and the ending was very rushed. I would have enjoyed it more if it had slowed down a bit at the end.

I hated everything about this book. I’m so tired of the cancer and dead mom trope. Pick something else to make the plot move.

Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for an honest review. I'm always very happy about an ARC and being able to give it a review! <3

Wow, the cover is just amazing and the blurb sounded very promising!

The story starts off a bit slower, but it quickly picks up speed. But I found the story to be a bit too long.

The characters were very well developed. I really liked Em and I would have loved to jump through the book and explore the property with her at night (especially the barn).

I just wish that someone or at least her husband had believed her more. Aren't we all tired with women being branded as totally untrustworthy?

Good ending. Good book.

Would definitely recommend it!

The first few chapters of The Farmhouse immediately grabbed my attention, but soon after I had trouble staying engaged. There was a lot of dialogue that felt superfluous and took away from the suspense. Unfortunately, it ended up being a DNF, but I would definitely try something else by the author to see if it's a better fit.

The story was pretty good, but this gets bumped down to a three star because I am so bored with the same old story in these thrillers of the husband not believing his wife and her accounts of bad things happening around them. It served ZERO purpose to the story aside from prolonging the conclusion of the story. I was really enjoying this one, but that ruined it for me. Super bummed!!

Josh and Emily relocate to a remote Nebraska farmhouse, hoping for a fresh start. But Emily becomes fixated on the barn, which seems to shift closer or further away in an unsettling, supernatural way. Disturbing discoveries and ghostly encounters reveal the dark history of the previous occupants: a woman who died tragically in the barn and a missing daughter whose fate remains unknown.
A horror read rich in tension and haunting imagery!

I thought that this was a good book. I enjoyed almost everything about it. The only thing that took me out of the story was the focus on running and the running journal. It really took away from the atmosphere of the story.